Guidelines for subject access in national bibliographies : IFLA Working Group on Guidelines for Subject Access by National Bibliographic Agencies

In a networked and globalized world of information the form of national bibliographies may have changed, however their major function remains unchanged: to inform about a country’s publication landscape, its cultural and intellectual heritage. Subject access offers a major route into this landscape providing information about the dispersion of publications in specific fields of knowledge and topics contained in a particular national publishing output. __The Guidelines for Subject Access in National Bibliographies__ give graded recommendations concerning subject indexing policies for national bibliographic agencies and illustrating various policies by providing best practice examples. Preface 1. Introduction 1.1 Subject access in national bibliographies 1.2 IFLA’s Working Group on Guidelines for Subject Access by National Bibliographic Agencies 1.3 Outline of the Guidelines 2. Users of national bibliographies and subject access 2.1 Users of national bibliographies 2.2 Use of subject access in national bibliographies 2.3 Outcome of this review 3. Subject access standards and tools 3.1 Natural and controlled language indexing 3.2 Features of controlled indexing languages 3.3 Importance of standard indexing tools 3.4 Verbal indexing schemes 3.4.1 Subject heading lists 3.4.2 Thesauri 3.4.3 Pre-coordination and post-coordination 3.5 Classification schemes 3.5.1 Dewey Decimal Classification 3.5.2 Universal Decimal Classification 3.5.3 Library of Congress Classification 3.6 Automatic indexing 3.7 Other subject access tools 4. Functionality and interface of national bibliographies 4.1 Presentation of national bibliographies 4.2 General recommendations 4.3 Online catalogue functionalities 4.4 Online catalogue interfaces 4.5 Online catalogue queries 4.6 Other catalogue features 5. Application scenarios (indexing / access levels) 5.1 Different levels of subject access 5.2 Selection criteria for subject access levels 5.2.1 Characteristics of materials 5.2.2 Users 5.2.3 Other considerations 5.3 Decision matrix 6. Indexing policies of National Bibliographic Agencies 6.1 Communicating the indexing policy 6.2 Content of the indexing policy 7. Examples of subject access provided by National Bibliographic Agencies 7.1 Subject access rules and standards used by National Bibliographic Agencies 7.1.1 Classification schemes 7.1.1.1 Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and adaptations 7.1.1.2 Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) 7.1.1.3 Library of Congress Classification (LCC) 7.1.1.4 National classification schemes 7.1.1.5 Broad subject categorisation schemes 7.1.2 Verbal indexing schemes 7.1.2.1 Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and adaptations 7.1.2.2 Other subject heading lists or thesauri 7.2 National examples of indexing level policies 7.3 National examples of published indexing policies 8. List of recommendations Glossary Bibliography Annex 1: Working Group history Annex 2: Members of the IFLA Working Group on Guidelines for Subject Access by National Bibliographic Agencies

In a networked and globalized world of information the form of national bibliographies may have changed, however their major function remains unchanged: to inform about a country’s publication landscape, its cultural and intellectual heritage. Subject access offers a major route into this landscape providing information about the dispersion of publications in specific fields of knowledge and topics contained in a particular national publishing output. The Guidelines for Subject Access in National Bibliographies give graded recommendations concerning subject indexing policies for national bibliographic agencies and illustrating various policies by providing best practice examples.